Genius to Burn

Saturday, 21 January 2017

As if we didn't have enough drama in the world of politics...😳😳😳😳 (Think of the future movies... they're going to be awesome!)

Over at Den of Geek today you can read my Top 25 Underrated Political Dramas, hooray! (This list only exists because there were way too many incredible films to squeeze into my previous list of political thrillers....)

My
favourite part of writing these articles is that it inspires me to see
AMAZING movies I would never otherwise have seen, like Soy Cuba (1964)

Friday, 13 January 2017

It's taken a while to dawn on me that political thrillers are one of my favourite genres of film. (After psychological thrillers and dinosaur films, obvs.) You might know the classics (they all seem to star Harrison Ford) but what about those classics which have slipped under the radar? Check out my Top 25 Underrated Political Thrillers over at Den of Geek!

Monday, 20 June 2016

If your Facebook timeline has been anything like mine for
the past couple of weeks, you may now be heartily sick of hearing about the
referendum. I have also beenirkedby the number ofposts I've read which start "I
hope I don't know anyone who's planning to vote Leave..." I'm sorry, did I
wake up in some sort of Nazi-land where we must all have the same opinions?Seriously, if you and everyone you
know are all voting the same way–
in this orany other election– it's a sure sign you live in a
little bubble and need to get out more. Diversify!

The EU has a number of fantastic features. For instance,
the laws that have improved people's lives, protected the environment, raised
standards of animal welfare, and ensured that food and cosmetics are always
accompanied by a full list of their (strictly tested and approved) ingredients.
The fact that once the laws have passed, they apply to 28 countries in one fell
swoop, makes everything a million times easier.

Despite this, I will be voting to leave the EU. (Not to be
confused with leaving "Europe", as so many professional journalists
have been heard to say.) Why? Let's take a look at some of the arguments doing the rounds
on the internet:

1) The Myth of EU Funding

(Also known as that awkward moment when you forget that
money "coming from the EU" is just a partial refund of money you sent
them in the first place.)

There's no such thing as "EU money". Just like "government money" – it all comes from YOU and your taxes. You know how everyone's been making such a fuss about the "mythical £350 million", and how much we "get back"? This is the cash they were talking about.

The EU does indeed generously bequeath us with our own money, but with provisos on how we can spend it. Kind of like giving your salary to your mum and then having her dole out your bus fare and lunch money but keeping the rest.

Interestingly, the Leave campaign has claimed the current subsidieswill remain the samein the event of Brexit, although what would happen after 2020 is anybody's guess.

Sohow much does our EU membership cost? According to independent UK fact checkers www.fullfact.org: "£350 million is what we would pay to the EU budget, without the rebate.* But the UK actually pays just under £250 million a week."

(*That rebate was hard-won by Maggie T, as pro-remain site www.infacts.org pithily notes; "Funny how eurosceptics, for most of whom Thatcher is a hero, have forgotten one of her best known achievements." All together now, #ThanksThatcher)

But we get some more funding back, so what are thefinal figures? Crunching the numbers further, www.fullfact.org's conclusion is that in 2015, "Overall we paid in £8.5 billion more than we got back, or £23 million a day." Just let that sink in for a moment. That's the amount we paid in that wenever saw again. £23 million PER DAY.

No matter how many cutesy memes you've seen about it equalling the price of a couple of pints, that's an awful lot of money.

("Free healthcare across Europe"? Your free EHIC card will entitle you to essential treatments "at a reduced cost or sometimes for free". But those medical bills will be passed onto your own Government, who pay them with your taxes. Oh, and you'llstill need insurance, too.) Interestingly, the UK also has reciprocal healthcare agreements with certain non-EU countries such as Australia, Croatia, Gibraltar, New Zealand and Russia.)The biggest reason behind my vote for Brexit is the total lack of transparency over what happens to the HUGE amounts of money they handle and the utter waste in what wedoknow they spend.

For instance, they blow£150 millionevery year on moving offices once a month. Yep, they pack all their paperwork in a bunch of lorries and relocate from Brussels to Strasbourg for four days. No particular reason, they just like it.

(Actually, I'm being facetious, The real reason is becauseFrance insists on it. Something to do with fighting over who got to host stuff back in the 1950s? Not that they're being childish about it)

"Other Areas" so beyond reproach that they don't even need to be mentioned.

It's often said that the EU has never been
audited, which turns out not to be true. As reported in 2014: "The
European Court of Auditors (ECA), an EU body set up to examine the accounts of
the Union, signed off on the 2014 accounts as reliable – something it's done
for every set of figures since 2007. But it did find that payments made were
materially affected by error.... Payments
have breached this (2% allowable error) threshold for the last 21
years."

Ignoring the fact that they're audited by an EU
body rather than an independent one (nope, absolutely no side-eye for that),
how much does that margin of error account for? "Overall, 4.4% of the
EU's spending didn't follow the rules and accordingly shouldn't
have been paid out."

4.4% sounds tiny, but if your total budget is €142.5 billion (about £114.8 billion) then that equals £5.0512 billion. (Lost forever.
No biggie.) And that's just the money that's gone unaccounted for.
While there's no doubt that our EU refunds are a boon to everything from the
arts to scientific research, there has also been some pretty suspect
spending from Brussels, such as the €300,000 (£263,511) spent on events
described as “cocktail parties” in 2009, or the
£350,000 cost of building a Hungarian dog hydrotherapy centre which
never opened.

I know, I know; If we picked a British MP for a random audit,
their spending would also be a nasty (non) surprise. But I'd rather only pay
for one set of ridiculous wasters than some
here and some in Brussels.

2) If we come out, crazed
right-wingers like Boris Johnson and Michael Gove will be in charge, with
nobody restricting them.

Some advocate voting Remain to
keep Boris out. Would it be melodramatic to liken that to suicide, in that it's
a permanent solution for a temporary problem?

We're a year into the current government and we'll have a general election in
four years' time. Given that it would take two years for us to extricate
ourselves from the EU anyway, that's only two years forhypotheticalPM Boris to romp unfettered through
the UK's existing laws. And we've got four more years of Conservatives ANYWAY,
no matter what the result of the referendum. (Unless Brexit triggers an
extraordinary election.)

Like them or not, the Tories were voted in,
while the leaders of the EU were not. Do we believe in democracy? Or does it
come with a disclaimer: "Only if the majority are correct, i.e. if they
agree with me"?

The point is often made that the house of
lords is also unelected. So instead of removing one lot of undemocratic punks,
we should keep both? Personally I think the sooner we dismantle the systems we currently have in
place, the better. And exiting the EU is the fastest way to kickstart our
revolution.

As Tony Benn once said, "“If you
cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live in a democratic
system.” We are free to vote out the Tories. We have no such powers when it
comes to voting on the actions of the EU.

Oh, wait, we do. On the 23rd of June.

3) The EU doesn't tell us
what to do!

Some of the EU laws are clearly a result of someone having too much
time on their hands (it's just a shame they haven't yet got round to
standardising shoe and clothes sizes so we wouldn't have to return half of what
we buy online, isn't it?) But they're not as crazy as the tabloidssuggest; I don't think it's unreasonable to
ban unsubstantiated health claims or insist that washing up gloves should be
safe to use. But I particularly love the EU's responseto the infamous banana story:
"Of COURSE we didn't ban bendy bananas, what a RIDICULOUS myth... I think
you'll find that we actually said that bananas had to be "free from
malformation or abnormal curvature". Gotcha. Totally different
thing.

Although the EU is generally considered to lackdemocratic legitimacy, their system does at least involve representatives from each of the 28 member
countries. Beyond that it all gets a bit complicated, so I'm just going to
leave this here for starters:

So how much control do they have over us?

In 2010, theHouse of Commons reported:"The
British Government estimates that around 50% of UK legislation with a
significant economic impact originates from EU legislation" but tempered
this by adding "However, there is no totally accurate, rational or useful
way of calculating the percentage of national laws based on or influenced by
the EU."

Brexiters claim: "Over the past twenty years… there have
been 72 occasions in the Council of Ministers where the United Kingdom has
opposed a particular measure. Of those 72 occasions, we have been successful
precisely 0 times and we have lost 72 times."

According to www.fullfact.org, "Official
EU voting records show that the British government has voted ‘No’ to laws passed
at EU level on 56 occasions, abstained 70 times, and voted ‘Yes’ 2,466 times
since 1999". So basically, we get our way when we happen to agree with
the majority.

There seems to be a prevailing belief that, without the civilising
influence of the EU, the UK would descend to its natural state of Dickensian
working conditions, heartless bosses etc. (Goodness me, we'd probably have
bankers with ridiculous bonuses, and struggling students on zero-hour
contracts, too.) The Leave campaign has a full list of the total (not
yet verified) 76 times Britain has been on the losing side of a vote,
revealing that actually, where we come up against the powers-that-be mostly on the subjects of fishing and farming. Who'da thunk it?)

The
Guardianinvestigates
further: either the UK is getting more feisty or the EU is getting more
unreasonable; we are "now in the minority more often than any other EU
government".

You might say "So what if we had to compromise on 12.3% of the
votes between 2009 and 2015?" But if we were outside of the EU, we
wouldn't have to compromise at all. Rather than having the EU juggle the very
different needs and cultures of 28 countries (ironing out our individual quirks to create one homogenised mass in the process) wouldn't it make more sense for
us all to be independent?

One comment I read online really
stuck in my mind: "This is like arguing that slavery is OK if the master
is kind... If you hand over more and more unaccountable power to wield by
people you like, it may one day be seized by people you don’t."

4)
If we stay in, we'll have a seat at the table and we'll be able to reform from
within.

Yeah, pretty sure Brussels' response to that idea will look something like this little guy:

Not for the first time, our relationship
with the EU reminds me of an abusive relationship. (They should really replace
"Stockholm" and rename it "Brussels Syndrome".) We've
already had "Can't you see how much I do for you?" and "You'll
never survive without me," not to mention "Nobody else will ever love you
and you'll die alone". Now we're falling for the classic "Things will change
after we get married." Because people always change for the better AFTER
you've signed the contract which legally binds you to them forever, don't
they?

The Remainers say that Brexiters are being
overly optimistic about our chances of being able to trade with the EU in
future, but their confidence (or perhaps hubris) at the thought of
revolutionising it is positively breathtaking; we've already had 43 years
to give that a go.

And David Cameron is particularly rubbish at
negotiating; back in February, instead of pretending he was totally
indifferent (the way you would if you were cancelling your mobile
phone package with the intention of getting them to throw some bargains your
way), he let the EU know that he was desperate to stay in. They treated
him with the disdain of mean girls at school faced with a nerd begging
to sit with them at lunch.

As a side note, he was recently in the news for buying a
blue 2004 Nissan Micra. This interested me because I am actually looking
for a similar car (although I prefer the cute early 2003 vintage, before the
shape changed and got all bulbous and weird).

This, not This

From my research on autotrader, gumtree, ebay etc I have learned that the going rate for one of these little beauties is somewhere between £500 – £800. David Cameron paid £1,495 for one with 92,000 on the clock? He was done. And not for the first time, it seems. When he attempted to make the EU agree to various promises, most of them were batted politely aside. And this was when he was in his strongest position, dangling the prospect of a referendum in front of them. Once our trump card is gone, are we really suggesting that the UK will be so strong and influential? The same UK currently threatened with being shut out of trading, excluded from terrorist intelligence, and generally doomed?

You can't have it both ways; we're either too weak to to stand on our own and we have no influence at Brussels, or we have plenty of clout both at the inner table and outside of it.

5) Our economy will
suffer and we'll end up like Switzerland and Norway, paying in, being forced to
have open borders and not being able to trade!

"You don't want to end up like Norway, do you?" is the
threat, as if Norway is the kid who lost his front teeth doing wheelies on his
bike. The big fear is that we'll get all the things we were trying to avoid – open
borders, huge fees – but we'll be stuck on the outside, unable
to trade because everyone is feeling spiteful after being spurned. Norway's
Prime Minister has warned that we "won't
like it" if we leave, although she did also admit that the EU
"is not very attractive". And the article comments are mostly from
Norwegian people pointing out that they're not remotely interested in the EU,
as evidenced by their repeatedly voting to stay out of it.

Meanwhile, perhaps in a sneaky show of solidarity, Switzerlandwithdrewits
long-dormant application to join the EU, saying "only a few lunatics"
would want to join now. (Being cynical, maybe they want us to leave so that the
EU will crumble and they won't get into trouble for naughtily
blocking the number of immigrants they take.)

Here's me, aged 9, in Switzerland on their national day. (A nice lady gave me the lantern on a stick.) Somehow, I managed to enter the country despite its stubborn anti-EU stance. (As a side note, I look quite evil, don't I? A bit Village of the Damned? I think it's from having no eyebrows.)

Firstly, the threat that we "won't get a say" is obsolete
when you see the only time our voice is heard is if we happen to side with the
majority. Norway and Switzerland both negotiate on which laws they agree to
take on board, and there's a fair bit ofwiggle room.

But do we only have Switzerland and Norway as our role models? Whether Britain is thefifth or ninth largest economy, likening our pulling power to Norway's is like comparing Tesco with your local corner shop. And there aredozens of countriesall over the world who have free trade deals with the EU without having to adhere to rules on free movement.

The value of the pound has dropped sharply in the pre-vote
uncertainty, but it also did this when we opted out of the Euro. And aren't we
all glad we didn't fall for the scaremongering back then? (Interestingly, the
threats used were remarkably similar to the "you'll never trade
again" claims being used now.)

Using the most British of words, Barack Obama has said we'll be "at
the back of the queue" when it comes to drawing up new trade
agreements.Of courseAmerica
want the UK to be part of the EU; dealing with all of us at once is much
easier. (Also, once we're gone, who are they going to pal around with?
Everybody knows we're the fun ones.) The EU and USA are currently
negotiating the controversial / dreaded Transatlantic
Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP);
tariffs between the two trading partners are already low at 3%, but the deal would
likely put this at zero. (Of course, chances are we could end up signing up to this or something
like it whether we're part of the EU or not...)

Word on the street is that leaving will mean being made an example of; as oneEU
diplomat put it, “If we say you are outside the EU but can keep all
of the advantages, access to the single market without any solidarity, it’s a
terrible message for the rest of the EU." France have already threatened
toshun
us.

As part of the EU, we've sometimes been held back from making agreements because of conflicts of interest, such as the EU avoiding deals which
could mean outsiders rivalling EU
members. Large organisations move slowly; the EU has been going back and forth
for YEARS with Canada, China, the US and India, to name but a few. Acting
alone, we wouldn't have to wait around for negotiations to suit all 28
members.

We will be able to use existing contracts for the next two years;
after that, even if we fail to strike satisfactory deals, the very worst
case scenario is that we'd have to stick to World Trade Organisation rules,
which would mean paying tariffs. And asJames Dyson points out,
"If, as David Cameron suggested, they
imposed a tariff of 10 per cent on us, we will do the same in return. We buy
more from Europe than they buy from us, so we would be the net beneficiary and
based on these numbers it would bring £10bn into the UK annually. Added to our
net EU contribution, it would make us around £18.5 bn better off each year if we
left the EU."

Will the other EU countries really give us the cold shoulder? Currently we send
about 44% of our exports to
the EU (although this rate has beensteadily dropping;
it was 60% back in 2000) while 16% of EU exportsgo
to the UK. This still makes us their biggest customer and when it comes down to
it, trade is only concerned with profits, not politics.

In fact, the EU has afalling shareof
the world's GDP, suggesting that perhaps it is already a shrinking ship (and
this referendum is our last lifeboat).

Membership of
the EU is beginning to sound like getting caught in a steel trap; escaping
is worthwhile even if it means chewing off your own arm. Many
farmers can't waitto be free ofthe red tape and
one-size-fits-all attitude that stretches across all the EU countries. The UK fishing industry is equally annoyed at the
fact they are only allocated 30% of the fishing
quota in
UK waters.

6) Turkey
isn't joining the EU

Pro-remain site www.infacts.orghas "Turkey will join EU in 2020" under its
"5 most misleading myths peddled by Leave". First of all, this is
quite rude towards the Turks, isn't it? Saying "Don't worry, they're NOT
coming." Guys, they're standingright
there.They can hear you.

Secondly, this
strikes me as meaningless, because if this is the only referendum we ever
get and we vote to stay in, we'll still be in whenever Turkey DOES join. It
doesn't make any difference whether it happens in 2017 or 2047. (And David Cameron's weird non-answers suggest that it's unlikely to be vetoed, whenever it occurs.)

7) Australia's points
based system has resulted in MORE immigration, not less.

That's because they are actively encouraging immigration. Just like us, they need people to help run the place. (Also, the attitude "Yah boo, you'll still get immigrants! In your face!" sort of suggests you don't actually think they're such a positive thing. Rude.)

8) And we DO have control of our borders.That's why you have
to go through passport control, duh!

The free movement of the EU means anyone with a European passport can come and live here. This is why it was so puzzling when David Cameron made promises about reducing immigration to "tens of thousands" – you can't, David. What part of "Free Movement" do not understand? The only way you could reduce numbers would be to completely cut off people coming from outside of the EU, and that would be unfair.

The issue of immigration could take up a whole blog, so that's what I've done: in a nutshell, I dislike the bizarrely colonial vibe of modern immigration and the misguided belief that the EU is somehow egalitarian when in reality it's a snobby in-group.

As for our own inconvenience if we opt out of free movement; we've all managed to travel to non-EU countries, haven't we? It's really not that hard. I know numerous people who have managed to live and work in non-EU countries too – we all know someone who lives in Thailand and does a "visa run" every three months, right?

Conclusion

For months,
members of the public have been demanding that Leave campaigners give them
"proof" and "guarantees" that Brexit will be a force
for good. We want "facts" and a definitive answer to the
question "What will happen if we leave?"

We have to accept that NOBODY KNOWS. (Although contrary to popular
belief, plans such as "Flexcit" ARE in place, ready to be put into action.) Even
the most confident prophet of doom or joy really has no idea what the future
holds. (But if David Cameron wants people to Remain, he really needs to stop
saying that Brexit will be "a leap in the dark" – he makes it
sound way too exciting for all the gamblers among us.)The scaremongering has gone too far now, with the result that whenever David Cameron, George Osborne or anyone else pops up with a new threat, the collective response is:

But the EU's marketing department has done its job: we now believe that being out
of the EU is "turning inward" and "isolating ourselves"
while being on the inside means belonging to a fluffy, cuddly family; kindness, inclusiveness and unity personified. Theoppositeis true. The EU is an EXCLUSIVE CLUB;
they will let you join if you fulfill their criteria, but if you mess up, they'll treat you with merciless contempt. (Just askGreece. I'm still not sure why the risk of being treated
like crap has been cited as a reason for us to stay in, rather than running
away as fast as we can.)

Brussels is
collecting countries likePokémoncards... for
what end game? To build a force mighty enough to compete with the US, China,
and Russia? To become the biggest power in the world and crush the competition?

We can't invite the whole world to be in the EU – that's
what the United Nations and NATO are for – so why are we acting like the EU is
all about togetherness? World unity will never be achieved while half of the
countries are in a little gang and the rest are not.

It has been argued that this referendum shouldn't be happening;
that the average Brit is just not educated or qualified enough to make such a momentous decision. To be fair, this is probably true. While lots of
people will choose whether to vote in or out based on carefully weighing
up all the options, some will vote for stupid reasons: voting out because they
don't like immigrants, or voting in because they think the EU gives us money.
And you know what? That's their privilege, because we live in a DEMOCRACY.
And that's something worth fighting for.

Many people I know assume that a vote for Brexit is simply a yearning to return to "little England" and the days of the British Empire, with David Cameron saying that Brexiters "Want to take us backwards." The Leave Campaign has been called "borderline racist" and I confess, some of the language involved has made me a bit twitchy; phrases like "Let's take back control of our borders" do smack of old-fashioned jingoism. The blatant bigotry of the kind of people who hold up signs saying "foreigners go home" is one thing. But prejudice comes in many forms, and I can't help being cynical about the patting-ourselves-on-the-back-for-being-so-generous smugness that is so prevalent in social media and TV audiences.

Every time someone in a debate says that immigration is great (for us) because "they do the jobs YOU don't want to do", it makes me cringe a little bit. Don't people HEAR how that sounds? As if we've finally found an acceptable way to go back to the old colonial days, except this time we don't even have to set sail for foreign shores – we can get our toilet scrubbed and our nails done and our fast food served to us by cheap labour and then tell our friends how wonderfully hard-working they are. Aren't we just soooo open-minded and benevolent? Especially when we count up how much money we've saved by employing a Slovenian au pair via Gumtree rather than getting a lazy British teenager through an agency.Sometimes the milk of human kindness curdles; Angela Merkel's irresponsible offer of a warm welcome to helpless refugees encouraged them to risk their lives trying to get to Germany. We're often so keen to appear welcoming and racially sensitive that we live in denial, because that way we don't have to actually give a toss about the quality of life for our immigrants. Like dismissing reports of Romanians living ten-to-a-bedroom as a "nasty stereotype", instead of admiring them for putting aside their own short-term discomfort in order to share rent and give themselves a financial leg-up.

It can get a bit crowded.

"Everyone voting for Brexit is xenophobic" is as much of a media-created narrative as the "immigrants steal our jobs" story. (It's a little ironic to assume you know why someone is voting a certain way, then call them "prejudiced".) But sometimes the most ardent supporters of immigration inadvertently reveal their own doubts about it.Suppose your friend says to you: "I've put on so much weight! I'm going to have to buy some bigger clothes." If you thought that being fat was neither a negative or a positive, but simply took your friend's words as a neutral statement of fact, you might answer "Well, let's go shopping! M & S are having a sale." If, however, you saw being fat as a VERY BAD THING, you'd deny it. "Of course you're not fat! You look exactly the same as you always have! You're VERY SLIM."

This is basically the way that some Remainers react to anyone who says that a) we have quite a few immigrants, and b) maybe having more people in the country means that we'll need to build more houses, schools, hospitals etc. (Not forgetting the sewers! "It's no good building more houses if there's nowhere for the poo to go," as a plumber once told me.)

Why on earth don't they just say "Yes, that's true." There's nothing WRONG with having immigrants! When we say that "old people living for longer" puts a strain on services, we just accept it as a fact of life. It's not necessarily rife with implicit aggression aimed at pensioners, and we don't try to shut down people saying it by shrieking "How dare you say such a thing about dear sweet elderly people! You old-age hater!"

But when we deny that net migration of 336,000 people in a single year might have any impact whatsoever on a country's infrastructure, we lose credibility. If we insist that our housing shortage is purely down to rich people buying up London property and then leaving it empty, or that the 6-week wait to see your GP is just down to funding cuts, it sounds as if we think that immigration is somehow shameful and must never be discussed. The reality is that OF COURSE we're going to need more facilities now that we have more people – it's the price we pay for having a growing economy and extra help running essential services like the NHS. If pro-EU politicians had acknowledged this instead of acting as if it's a crazy, bigoted fallacy, maybe people wouldn't have become frustrated enough to force a referendum.

The attitude to immigrants / likelihood of voting for UKIP is often seen as a class issue, with the middle-class intellectuals scoffing at the views of those poor ignorant chavs, with their England flag tattoos and cans of lager. It's a fair point, but if we put aside our snobbery and try empathy instead, we might get more of an insight into why some people are so ferociously in favour of limits on immigration. After all, It's easy to be generous towards migrants when you're skipping to your job at the BBC, The Guardian under your arm as you pop into Starbucks for your morning skinny latte and plan your next big holiday: your life is only ever going to be improved by free movement. On the other hand, if you work as a builder or a cleaner, the joke could come true; you might actually lose work to a newcomer who can undercut your prices.Similarly, you might embrace an amnesty for illegal immigrants because it sounds so sweet and nice, but it's still a bit of a kick in the teeth to those migrants who have spend considerable time and energy going through the official channels. There is always another side of the story, and knee-jerk reactions (often virtue signalling how non-racist you are) serve no purpose other than clogging up our twitter feeds.

The shiny-faced students on Question Time say proudly "We should just take down all the borders" but it never seems to occur to them to ask what's happening in the country that person has just left. Or whether a mass exodus of all the most courageous and motivated citizens, leaving in search of better prospects, is going to work out so well for the people left behind. Lots of people I know are choosing to vote remain largely because they want the option of living abroad in future and love the ease of travel with borderless Europe. But having a summer of backpacking around Italy or fruit-picking for a lark is a very different prospect from reluctantly leaving your home country – and extended family – because there aren't any jobs, and your only chance for a better life is to try somewhere else. We quietly ignore the fact that many immigrants are actually highly qualified professionals who choose to set aside their expertise and take the first job they can get their hands on. There's nothing wrong with working for minimum wage (I've had some pretty awful jobs in my time, ain't no shame in it) but really? Doctors and lawyers being forced to stack shelves and mop up vomit, just to make ends meet?

Is it me, or is this an incredibly crappy way for people to have to spend their lives? Yet we refuse to admit anything might be wrong with the system for fear of being labelled xenophobic. We'd rather keep the status quo than admit there might be something rotten in the state of Brussels and then have to actually do something about fixing it. It's becoming well-known that giving money to big charities isn't the best way to help: your donation pays for the CEO's £200,000 salary and the marketing budget, which is then sent back to you in the from of "free" calendars and notecards. The actual work they do undermines the people it is meant to help, creating a new cycle of dependency. Books such as "Shut up and Give" (Chad Jordan) and "Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help (And How to Reverse It)" (Robert D. Lupton) discuss the futility of chucking money at a "charity" without actually seeing effective results.

I'm starting to feel that our patronising attitude to migrants has the same vibe. It's so much easier to just give your money to Oxfam (in exchange for natty "I bought you a goat" cards) and feel instantly pious, than it is to actually think about where the money is going and find more effective alternatives (like micro-financing, for example.) Likewise, it's easier to talk loudly about how great it is to have open borders and scream "Racist!" when people express concern over the sustainability of constant immigration, than to actually look at why people NEED to migrate thousands of miles away from home.

Perhaps we could offer help that would improve countries as a whole; by trading with them, by sponsoring businesses, offering scholarships in local schools, sharing expertise and resources. Perhaps we could help other countries reach their potential instead of bragging about how many of their workers we're taking?Right now, by buying into the "togetherness" of the EU, we're locking OUT developing countries. For instance, the Common Agricultural Policy, designed to help farmers across Europe, is life-destroyingly bad for farmers in African countries. It keeps prices artificially low, which means those outside of the system can't compete. The EU also steals resources such as fish from the coast of Gambia (and you thought British fishermen had a legitimate claim to be cross). That warm, fuzzy friendship and co-operation that the Remainers have been so vocal about only applies to those on the inside of the club, and this makes me mad enough to spit.

The Syrian Refugee crisis is just one of the horrible events which has made me pause to contemplate just how much of a lottery life is. While I enjoy my comfortable existence, blighted only by first world problems such as "I don't know which new laptop to buy", others have had to flee from their bomb-decimated homes in fear for their lives, then move into refugee-camp-limbo for months or even years on end.

The EU reinforces this where-you're-born-determines-your-lot-in-life concept; giving its member states, and ONLY its member states, special privileges such as free movement. What's more fair? Allowing in limitless numbers of people just because they happen to have been born in the "right" country? Or offering a DECENT opportunity to someone from outside of that coveted in-group, because they have proved themselves to be hard-working and go-ahead? When we have free movement between a certain group of lucky countries, it means less room and fewer chances for migrants from elsewhere.

Illustrator Axel Scheffler said that "Without the EU, there would be no Gruffalo". Which is as flimsy a reason to vote "in" as any other. (Maybe not quite as flimsy as the threat of World War Three.) But what if right now, there is an equally fantastic artist living in Japan? Or Bolivia? We might never meet them! One of the most constant arguments from the Remain side has been that an emancipated UK will be "isolated" and "looking inwards" rather than embracing all that wonderful European-ness. Why must we stop with Europe? Immigrants from all over the world enrich our culture, our economy, our friendship groups and our gene pool.

But the EU doesn't unify, it divides; as Chris Bickerton, Cambridge university's politics lecturer points out: "The euro has created new divisions but it has also cemented older ones.
It has exaggerated the differences between productive and unproductive
national economies."

I know what you're thinking: how can we trust that OUR government (regardless of which party is in charge) will do the right thing, when they have so often screwed up in every possible way?

Let's not forget that it was Labour who came up with this beyond-parody marketing strategy.

We can't, of course. If we do vote for Brexit, that doesn't automatically mean we'll start creating a fairer world. But it's easier to reform our own system than somebody else's. Outside of the EU, change is possible. Inside, we're stuck forever with what we're given. For those who are wondering "If we leave the EU, what will happen to all the Brits who have emigrated?" The answer is: nothing. Just like nothing will happen to the Europeans in the UK. They're protected by the Vienna Convention of 1969, which says people will keep the rights that they once exercised under a treaty, even if that treaty is later terminated.Nobody is getting chucked out. NOBODY – not even your pal Nigel – has ever said they're aiming to stop migration altogether, and controlled rather than free movement will continue.

The BIGGEST RED HERRING in this debate is that it's about race. This referendum is not about the number of immigrants we welcome onto our island. It's not even about whether we might have to fill out a form on the aeroplane next time we go on holiday in Europe or get hit with roaming charges for using our phone. It's about the UK having autonomy. And believe it or not, it's about whether we want to close ourselves off into a special little members-only club with a velvet rope, or if we want to be open to the whole world. On the 24th June, will we have surrendered to keeping everything just the way it's been for 43 years, or will we step out, blinking like a little baby deer, into the bright sunshine of a brave new (whole and unlimited) world?

Amazon Contextual Product Ads

About Me

Sometimes I have so many thoughts, I have to GET THEM OUT OF ME. It's a bit like an exorcism, but with less green spew. Sometimes I talk about books I've read or music I listen to, and sometimes I rant about feminism or racism or fundamentalism. Mostly I tell stories about embarrassing things that I've done, like falling over in the street or accidentally insulting people I work for. And sometimes I post pictures of cute fluffy kittens.It's a bit random, but I like it.
I'm on twitter as @becky_clough